Mr. Gaines -- Your presence here is/has been greatly appreciated. Ian has been a serious biographer of the groups' history (since 1961) for the last three or so years. See AGD'S Bellagio site (http://www.btinternet.com/~bellagio/). Not knowing him personally but...knowing him...I am POSITIVE he wasn't trying to 'correct you', per se. He was just doing what he's done for a long time now.

Please don't think it was an attack on you or the book. Or the info in the book.

Ah, yes. The geeky tendency of this board to obsess over the tiniest minutae has once again served its intended purpose. I mean, some people mean well, but before pointing out the flaws in someone's work, why not read earlier post where the person specifically acknowledges said flaws and tries to move past them? I can just see if Brian came on here:

Hey everyone. I thought I'd come by and answer some questions. Is that cool with everyone? Groovy. So let's get started!

Brian, when did you record the vocals for Sloop John B.?Uh, I don't know. Sometime in early 1966, I guess.Actually, it was 1965. Oh. Okay.

Brian, what year was your gorgeous falsetto replaced by a croaky shadow of its former glory?Um... 1976? No, we've discussed this at length and believe it was 1975.

Brian, is your marriage to Melinda a sham?No, I love Melinda, and she loves me.Wrong again, Brian.

Brian, is it true that Mike Love is an asshole?Sometimes. Yes, yes he is.No, Brian. He's not. He's misunderstood, and you're overrated. Go back to the blueboard.

Ah, yes. The geeky tendency of this board to obsess over the tiniest minutae has once again served its intended purpose. I mean, some people mean well, but before pointing out the flaws in someone's work, why not read earlier post where the person specifically acknowledges said flaws and tries to move past them? I can just see if Brian came on here:

Hey everyone. I thought I'd come by and answer some questions. Is that cool with everyone? Groovy. So let's get started!

Brian, when did you record the vocals for Sloop John B.?Uh, I don't know. Sometime in early 1966, I guess.Actually, it was 1965. Oh. Okay.

Brian, what year was your gorgeous falsetto replaced by a croaky shadow of its former glory?Um... 1976? No, we've discussed this at length and believe it was 1975.

Brian, is your marriage to Melinda a sham?No, I love Melinda, and she loves me.Wrong again, Brian.

Brian, is it true that Mike Love is an furo do burro?Sometimes. Yes, yes he is.No, Brian. He's not. He's misunderstood, and you're overrated. Go back to the blueboard.

Brian, when was... Brian? Brian? Where'd Brian go?

Haha! . . . This is a very funny and revealing post.

But as was said earlier, you have to take all views in context.

There's minutiae on the one hand . . . and the bigger picture on the other. And they both do matter. In a perfect world, the meeting of the two in the middle brings major enlightenment to the less informed.

The question, from my perspective is . . . Does lack of knowledge and accuracy in the former lead to flawed perspectives in the latter? I would say yes and no, depending on the info and circumstances (and the writer). The devil can lie in both the details and the larger social context. It all depends on the writer, his/her sources, and his/her abilities to communicate in writing.

Readers (myself included) will make their first-look, knee-jerk observations . . . regardless. But if we can then go beyond that . . . and further dissect the material, we can often come away with something more than we had before.

But yes . . . absolutely . . . mistakes and factual errors (large and small) are a pox on any writer and/or historian. It happens to all of us, regardless of subject matter.

I too feel bad he is gone, it was so unbelievable that he was even here if only because I never heard him discuss the book with fans. I must stress I don't think Ian meant to offend at all, I certainly think he found value in the book from what he posted. Perhaps it would have been better to post the info in the Heroes and Villians review thread, but Mr. Gaines wrote a controversial piece that some fans will take issue with. I myself wrote a review of the book which was critical about the music info, but have written a new one in lieu of his open frustration with the errors. I understand and respect his decision to go, and I think he certainly made us all have a new respect for him and a work that has proven to have a lot of insight. I think we all welcome him back if he chooses to post again.

since I've never read Heroes & Villains (it wasn't published in my country, I just gave it a quick look on a bookstore during a holiday overseas. I saw the movie, but I try to remember it just for laughs -that Planet of Apes facial hair!) but The love you make was, if not my first Beatle book, the first serious Beatle bio I read, I'd like to take this chance to make some comments/questions about it.

1. I think is a valuable book when it comes to the private lives and inside stuff of the business, especially the stories that Peter Brown brought to it, although it draws heavily from the Hunter Davies and Philip Norman books (you even repeated a mistake of Norman, writing that the original version of The Long and Winding Road, before Spector's involvement, was just Paul with an acoustic guitar)

2. As you wrote on this thread, your field of writing is not music, but I think you did a disservice to Ringo's reputation with the groundless claim that his drums were usually replaced by Paul's. I mean, even today some journalists repeat that non-fact.

3. As I said before, Brown's insight was one of the main assets of the book, though I think his attitude was basically unethical to a group of people who trusted him (not that such things as ethics matters when it comes to this kind of tell-all books). My question is, why -bordering on hypocrisy- Brown talked at lenght about Brian Epstein's sex life, but didn't say anything about his own. Other sources claim that not only Brown is gay, but he also had a relationship with Epstein. Can you confirm/deny this? Are you still in touch with Brown?

4. And the last. Why did you try to make the book look -on the introduction and Brown's publicity press- like it was officially sanctioned by The Beatles? George and Paul's disowned it and with reason: to name an example, I can't imagine Harrison endorsing a book which was going to include his affair with Maureen Starkey.

Anyway, I reread several parts of it recently, and I still think it's an entertaining, interesting, if very flawed look at one side of the Beatles' lives

Why in the hell would you bring that up here? This isn't a Beatles board, and serves no purpose other than to further tick the guy off. Nice.

Quote

I too feel bad he is gone, it was so unbelievable that he was even here if only because I never heard him discuss the book with fans. I must stress I don't think Ian meant to offend at all, I certainly think he found value in the book from what he posted. Perhaps it would have been better to post the info in the Heroes and Villians review thread, but Mr. Gaines wrote a controversial piece that some fans will take issue with. I myself worte a review of the book which was critical about the music info, but have writen a new one in leiu of his open frusteration with the errors. I understand and respect his decision to go, and I think he certainly made us all have a new respect for him and a work that has proven to have a lot of insight. I think we all welome him back if he chooses to post again.

I would too. At the time he was the only one with the balls to actually paint a true picture of the band, and didn't shy away where others did.Actually, you could probably take the "at the time" part. I mean, I love Peter Carlin's book, but it seemed like he was trying to be too nice in parts.

Mr. Gaines -- Your presence here is/has been greatly appreciated. Ian has been a serious biographer of the groups' history (since 1961) for the last three or so years. See AGD'S Bellagio site (http://www.btinternet.com/~bellagio/). Not knowing him personally but...knowing him...I am POSITIVE he wasn't trying to 'correct you', per se. He was just doing what he's done for a long time now.

Please don't think it was an attack on you or the book. Or the info in the book.

Hope to see you back here in a couple days...

I second that, and would add that I don't think anyone sees the book as having error-issues, unless maybe the author himself, to his credit. Andrew had even spoken to its basic accuracy recently, and it's withstood twenty-two years of additional research extremely well, especially for a book of that scope.

This is especially frustrating for me, because this book is a GREAT topic for this place, and (surprisingly) one of the few things that hasn't (to my knowledge) already been beaten to death by four generations of posters.

TO give you an idea of what was in play here, think of this: in the Fall of 1961 Murry and Audree went to Mexico for the weekend with an English business associate of A.B.L.E. Machinery, and returned to find that the Beach Boys had been born out of the meal money they left. The English guy apparently came into the house with them and witnessed that moment and heard them play "Surfin' ". Steven Gaines talked to the English guy.

There also won't be any more fresh interviews with Gary Usher, Roger Christian, Mae or Irving Rovell, Audree, any of Murry's siblings, Fred Vail (?), Nik Venet...Dave Marks' parents...Shawn Love, Karen Lamm, (are any on that list living?).

This guy talked to an absolutely stunning list of people and his research can never be duplicated. He had even expressed an openness to possibly posting selected audio excerpts for us.

He was not here shilling a new edition. He was just fielding questions from us. I was working up to asking some slightly tougher or more subjective ones, but in light of recent developments I am considering changing that approach and openly kissing his ass.

In all seriousness, and I hope you're reading this, I think we'd be willing to have the discussion of Heroes & Villains on whatever basis you're comfortable with- though now you know you're among obsessives. And if you don't feel inclined to leap back into the ring with us, I'd like to propose that you consider being available to Endless Summer Quarterly or some other publication like that, because there is extremely high interest in your work.

It was a rare and fascinating window of opportunity that we all had (and hopefully mayhave again someday) to hear unique anecdotes and insights, and clearly the requisite tactfulness was not shown.

I was looking forward to hearing his response to having his work plagiarized, and his recollections (maybe even recordings) of irreplaceable interview subjects. I'm sure no harm was meant by Ian (his research is commendable and ashe said, his date corrections were not meant as criticism), but the effect was predictableand understandable.

Let's all learn from this and be more courteous and less obsessively detail-oriented andnitpicky if similar situations should arise again!

Shane! Come back!

Logged

"The police aren't there to create disorder, they're there to preserve disorder!" -MayorDaly, Chicago 1968

It was a rare and fascinating window of opportunity that we all had (and hopefully mayhave again someday) to hear unique anecdotes and insights, and clearly the requisite tactfulness was not shown.

I was looking forward to hearing his response to having his work plagiarized, and his recollections (maybe even recordings) of irreplaceable interview subjects. I'm sure no harm was meant by Ian (his research is commendable and ashe said, his date corrections were not meant as criticism), but the effect was predictableand understandable.

Let's all learn from this and be more courteous and less obsessively detail-oriented andnitpicky if similar situations should arise again!

Shane! Come back!

We could have done the same thing to Peter Carlin with errors and we didn't do it to him. Which was good because it was very interesting when he was here too. Again Ian wasn't trying to upset anyone, but it's just unfortunate.

I'm a bit flabbergasted that Steven is, in the Eagles' words, 'Already Gone'. That is sad. And it wasn't necessary. I for one, if I'd have a list of potential errors in my head, would've kept it to a PM at best. If I'd have thought that those errors were important in the first place, that is.Writing is a most difficult process and even with others who do sort of a post-editing job, things can go unnoticed.For me, the book is so valuable because at the time (1986?) it was the very first description how Denny spent his last days. Up to that point, I only knew that he drowned at the spot where supposedly keepsakes and stuff from the 'Harmony' had sunk.

There also won't be any more fresh interviews with Gary Usher, Roger Christian, Mae or Irving Rovell, Audree, any of Murry's siblings, Fred Vail (?), Nik Venet...Dave Marks' parents...Shawn Love, Karen Lamm, (are any on that list living?).

Unless I have missed something I'm pretty sure Fred Vail is still alive.

COMMENT: Fred Vail is still active at Treasure Island Studios. You can read his Bio by going to the below sight, click on "about us" and then "Fred Vail." I spoke with him only a few months ago. Great guy! ~swd